Monday Morning Commute: Swamp Rats
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If you’re not careful, you may wind up a regular, boring person. You’ll sip only from bottles of regular, boring mind-juice. Your blood will never boil, whether in contempt or jubilation, at the sight of any unscheduled programming. You will never swing your Existential Monster Truck over the double-lines, crushing regular, boring soul-vessels in the process. In fact, you’ll just become mired in the homogeneous muck of mediocrity.
Forever.
Because that’s what THEY want.
Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! This weekly post is my excuse to ramble and then show you how I’ll be keeping my (in)sanity via entertainment. After I puff, I’m going to pass – hit up the comments section and share what you’ll be doing in the upcoming days.
Let’s rawk.
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Appreciatin’/The Game
I think David Fincher may get my vote for reigning supreme over the current generation of directors. While he’s had a couple of undeniable duds, for the most part his movies are goddamn testaments to the power of cinema. Hell, even the grossly underappreciated Zodiac is a stroke of genius.
The dude knows how to make a flick.
Yesterday, I sat down and watched The Game for the first time since it was released on video. While I should’ve anticipated this reaction, I was amazed at just how damn good it is. Fincher presents Michael Douglas as an insanely wealthy investment banker that is subjected to seemingly insane mind games that make the viewer question the character’s sanity. Imagine Gordon Gecko as a sympathetic dude that’s fucked with on an unfathomable level.
Super dark and gritty and cerebral, yet ending on an almost unsettling positive note, the movie is pretty much the perfect transition from 1995’s Se7en to 1999’s Fight Club. If you haven’t, watch it. If you’ve already seen it, watch it again.
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Rockin’/Dinosaur Jr.
I’m sure there’s plenty of totally-rockin’ new music that I’m missing out on right now. So if you know of any, please tell me what it is. But for now, I’ll be rocking some old-school alternative shit.
I had heard Dinosaur Jr.’s Start Choppin’ (posted above) years ago, and I loved it. But other than that tune, I never gave Dinosaur Jr. much of a chance. However, that changed today after a coworker sang praises of the group and recounted the various times he’d seen them in the late 80s/early 90s. Since we live in the future, I hit up a YouTube mix and have been jamming all afternoon.
So, any of you creatures on the webz into the band? If so, are there any sick start-to-finish albums I should invest in? Let me know.
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Geekin’ Out For/Super 8
The kid at the end of the trailer sums it up perfectly: “What the hell?”
I’m still not 100% sure what Super 8 is about. Something along the lines of small-town kids in the late 1970s accidentally filming a train wreck that results in the release of a monster/alien/man-made disaster? If that’s even half-right, I’m sold. Hell, even if it’s completely wrong, I’m sold. This is a J.J. Abrams-directed, Spielberg-produced flick – how can it not be (at the very least) entertaining?
I know that it’s easy to get burned by trailers, as the fuggin’ things are designed to plant our asses into theater seats. But when I watch the trailer for Super 8, I get goosebumps. This flick is looking to be one of those rare treats, the type of film that flourished in the 1980s, that combines adrenaline-pumping action with heartfelt sentiment. Maybe my expectations are too high and I’m bound to be disappointed.
But, then again, maybe I won’t be.
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So there’s my week.
Now, feel free to be naughty – show me yours.